


the one where there's aliens

by la_dissonance



Category: Buzzfeed: Worth It (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Aliens, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Crack, Gen, Humor, Mixed Media, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2018-12-17
Packaged: 2019-09-19 15:25:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17004222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/la_dissonance/pseuds/la_dissonance
Summary: What do you do after space aliens show up and solve all of humanity's problems?Obviously you put them on Buzzfeed.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [desastrista](https://archiveofourown.org/users/desastrista/gifts).



> Happy Yuletide, desastrista! Hope you enjoy.
> 
> Thanks to S for the beta and C for the help with puns.

TO: Steven Lim, Rie McClenny, Adam Bianchi, Annie Jeong  
FROM: Andrew Ilnyckyj  
SUBJECT: Worth It Season 8

BODY: This would be a great location for season 8. Thoughts?

ATTACHMENT: [visit_the_mothership.jpg](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17004222/chapters/39975582)

\------

"About that email." Steven rounds the corner and leans way over the modular half-wall that separates Andrew's work area from the hallway.

It takes him a while to look up, but Steven waits patiently through the routine of pointedly-ignoring-Steven-while-answering-other email. The routine says "if I sent you an email, I expected an email back," but emails are for reasonable things. This is ludicrous.

Eventually, Andrew swings his chair around and makes eye contact. Steven says, "This is a joke, right?"

"I take our show very seriously," Andrew says, even though, _per his own outlandish email_ , he demonstrably does not.

Steven wishes he had brought his laptop over with him so he could point at the offending email for emphasis. He settles for air quotes instead. "How is 'Let's film the next season of Worth It on the alien mothership that's orbiting the earth' a serious suggestion? In what world does that make any sense?"

Andrew grins. "In what _world_ , you ask..."

Steven groans. The rest of the day passes with Andrew messaging him alien puns every hour, each cornier than the last.

\---

The next morning, Steven narrowly avoids putting his coffee mug down on a neat stack of paper left next to his keyboard. It's a printed-off powerpoint. "This is a waste of paper," he calls out to the office at large. The office at large doesn't react.

Steven flips through the pages as his computer boots up. It appears to be a formal proposal from Andrew. A few bullet points catch his eye as he skims.

  * Ambassadors for humanity
  * What does the aliens' food even taste like? Our fans want to know!
  * Once-in-a-lifetime opportunity
  * "We have to be more inventive next season" - Steven Lim
  * The aliens are immensely powerful & benevolent beings who solved all of earth's problems and who we truly don't deserve, but who _are_ they, really? What are they like at home? _Worth It_ is the perfect vehicle to find out.
  * If we don't jump on this, the Try Guys will



\------

Steven runs into Andrew by the coffeemaker while he's still mulling it over.

He opens his mouth to offer some kind of cogent, logical rebuttal that might head off Andrew's inevitable sales pitch at the pass. Unfortunately, Steven has only had one cup of coffee so far today, and what comes out is, "For all you know, they could be planning to murder us."

Andrew cracks up. Maybe the first few times someone had brought up some version of _the aliens are going to kill us all_ it had been a genuine worry, but the longer they stuck around, the more it turned into a running joke. 

On cue, Andrew says, "The aliens who reversed climate change just because they could? Yeah, definitely going to murder us."

Steven tries to commit. "Just because they've helped keep us alive so far" - just last month, two different alien/human working groups had discovered the cures for HIV and cancer, respectively - "doesn't mean they'll never want us dead. There won't _be_ a season eight if we're all murdered."

Andrew nudges Steven out of the way of the fridge so he can get the creamer. "Sure, right, the same aliens who eradicated poverty worldwide — those are the aliens who are going to lure a couple hundred humans up to their ship to murder us?"

"Well, I don't pretend to understand their motives," Steven says, filling his mug.

Andrew isn't giving Steven an inch. "So far their motives pretty clearly seem to be good."

"We don't know them at all! Maybe they just want us happy before they harvest our organs." This was the _stupidest_ argument to lock himself into.

"Sure, and maybe it would be really cool to see the inside of their ship."

He has a point. Steven goes back to his desk to reread that powerpoint.

\------

"Okay, you won me over," Steven says. He'd brought an annotated copy of the proposal around to everyone else's desks and gotten them to physically sign off, since mass-emailing a printed powerpoint was a little impractical. Now Adam, Annie, and Steven are all huddled around Andrew's desk, with Rie video calling in from her living room.

Andrew looks happy to see them. "Welcome, future am- _badass_ -adors for humanity."

Steven rolls his eyes. "Really?" 

Andrew just grins harder. "No, seriously, this is going to rock."

"I can't believe you guys decide to take the show to an alien mothership on the one day I work from home," Rie says. 

Andrew gives an apologetic half-grin. "Sorry. I didn't think it would take this long to convince grandpa here it was an awesome idea."

"Me? _I'm_ grandpa?" Steven scoffs. Andrew is wearing a baggy cardigan over a multipack white t-shirt at this _very moment_. 

"Did either of you guys apply yet?" Adam asks.

The chatter dies down immediately. Annie looks at Steven. Steven looks at Andrew. Adam looks at all of them with that inscrutably mild expression of his. 

Rie tilts her laptop lid and makes a face. "I think my connection cut out, guys. One sec, I'll call you back."

\------

> ** APPLICATION FOR ALIEN MOTHERSHIP VISITATION **
> 
> NUMBER OF VISITORS:
> 
> SPECIES:
> 
> DURATION OF STAY:
> 
> PURPOSE OF VISIT:
> 
> ANY UNCOMMON REQUIREMENTS:

\------

"Do we have any 'uncommon requirements,' do you think?" Andrew wheels his chair over until its feet bump into the feet of Steven's chair.

Steven pauses where he's editing the second-to-last episode of their current season. He takes the laptop and reads over the fine print under the application form. "It says here, 'We are aware of humans' average physiological requirements and can provide a comfortable environment onboard.' I think they mean like, if you have a disability or need to call your kids every day or stuff like that?"

"Hmm," Andrew says, wheeling back to his spot on the table.

"Wait, is there electricity on their ship?"

Andrew looks at him. 

"What if they don't use electricity? What if all their super-advanced tech is powered by _crystals_ or _the power of love_ or something?" Steven wiggles his eyebrows for emphasis.

"Ha, ha," Andrew says, but Steven can see him typing _Somewhere to charge our cameras and laptops and stuff_ in the application.

A chill goes down Steven's spine. Somehow the mental image of plugging his phone into a crystal or something makes everything seem very _real_ all of a sudden.

"Wait, okay, if we're really doing this, _how_ do we do it? There's no Alien Mothership category on Yelp. I can't call around and build a list of chefs to pre-screen or anything."

There's no way to communicate with the ship at all — not that people on earth haven't tried. The first time anyone heard from the aliens was when their shuttle landed in the middle of the Gobi desert. 

"On-the-ground research and a good translator," Andrew says. "And luck." He backspaces over their original 4-week estimate and adds two weeks.

\------

The day they send the application off, Andrew calls while Steven's cooking dinner.

"Steven," Andrew says, instead of 'Hey' or 'What's up'. He sounds mildly panicked.

"My man! What's going on?"

"Do the aliens eat?"

Steven adjusts the phone on his ear. "What?"

"Do the aliens. _Eat_?"

"Uh. Like, food?" Steven says. 

"We are a food show, so yes."

"They've got to, right?" Steven scans his memory. There's not a lot anyone knows about the aliens, sure, but they're obviously living animals and not — rock monsters, or beams of pure energy. Someone has to have seen one of them taking a canapé at a benefit event. Something. 

Steven puts his soup on the back burner while Andrew comes over. It takes a couple hours of deep digging online, but in the end they're able to surface three solid pieces of evidence of the aliens eating human food, along with more questionable evidence than will fit on Steven's hastily cobbled-together research spreadsheet.

The good news is that the aliens definitely, probably, eat.

The other good news is that there's no evidence that anyone has eaten the aliens' food. The season will definitely be groundbreaking. The bad news....is that no one has eaten the aliens' food. 

"Maybe we shouldn't have applied," Andrew says, staring into the middle distance as he closes his laptop.

"No, come on," Steven exclaims. "If they can eat our food and not die, it works both ways, right? Like they don't need space suits to live on earth, so we're basically the same."

"Sounds legit," Andrew agrees. "Let's run with it."

\------

Their application stays in Processing status for the better part of a week, long enough for Steven to get the team together to brainstorm alternate themes in case this doesn't work out. He's hopeful, though. Their fans will love this. Even the grumpy ones who message the show's instagram to say that they're unsubscribing if they see Wagyu beef one more time.

It's during one of those sessions that Annie, who has mainly been watching and occasionally taking pictures of the whiteboard, clears her throat and says, "Hey, guys."

There's an expectant pause.

"Do we know if the aliens use money?"

"Uh," Steven says. He feels like he's been saying that a lot lately.

Andrew slides down the wall until he's sitting on the floor. "We should withdraw our application. We barely know if they eat, we have no way to know if they use money until we get there. That's ninety percent of the show gone. How much b-roll of us walking around between locations can Adam even film?"

"A lot," Adam says quietly.

Steven walks over to the whiteboard and erases it. "Okay, new brainstorming session. What basis can we compare meals on if they don't cost money? We're going to _space_ , let's get weird."

\------

**Alternate Metrics if Money Is Literally No Object**

_= > What makes a meal 'worth it'?_

  * **Taste**
    * _We already evaluate everything on taste, do you even watch the show?_
  * **Beauty**
    * Better but really close to taste
  * _Time to prepare_
    * **Ok but what if all their simple food just takes ages to ferment**
    * _Good point_
  * **Effort to prepare? Number of beings involved in preparation**
    * _The Too Many Cooks factor, perfect :)_
    * **That smiley face feels passive-aggressive to me**
    * _It was genuine!! there's something to this one_
  * **Whether it's good or gross**
    * _That's pretty rude_
    * **They'll all be thinking it though**
    * _As the executive producer i have to nix this, Worth It is a positive show. - S_
    * **Executive producer??**
    * _You know what I mean_
  * _Rarity of ingredients_
    * Combine with the effort one above?
  * **How close/far it is to human food**
    * Which human food though
    * **Any?**
    * _So an arbitrary human food_
    * **Give the people what they want!**
    * _Ok fine we can do one episode where we find a Space Hotdog or whatever_



\------

When the notification comes through that their application has been approved, half the office breaks out into pandemonium. The other half is only quiet because they're texting everyone they know. A lot of their coworkers have really gotten into the idea.

"We're going to _space_ ," Steven says, sweeping Andrew into an exhilarated hug. Andrew's grinning as wide as his whole face and won't stop high-fiving everyone he can reach, even while being hugged. It quickly escalates into a celebratory pileup.

\------

After that, everything seems to happen in double time. Making travel arrangements to the spaceport where the alien ambassador assigned to their trip will pick them up one day leads to the daunting task of packing for a trip with no wifi the next.

Andrew calls Steven late one night while Steven is trying to calculate how many socks he'll need to bring. Is there laundry in space?

"Last chance to back out before it's too late," he says without preamble.

"Very funny. I know we're all stressed, but you can still have manners. Look: Hi, Andrew, how are you? How's packing going?"

"It's a disaster." Andrew sighs. "We should be doing season eight on spending six weeks without internet. That's the _real_ challenge here."

Steven laughs. "Hey, I'm bringing scrabble, we'll be fine. That's a good idea, though. We could do blog posts or whatever. Put them up once we get back, give us some more time to edit."

"Hmm," Andrew says. There's muffled packing noises in the background.

"Wait, do _you_ want to back out? You were so excited about it!"

"Pff, no — not really? Maybe a little. It just seems too good to be true, you know?"

Steven wishes they were having this conversation face to face so he could give Andrew a Look. It's what he deserves. "You're not worried that they're going to lure us up there to murder us, are you? Because I tried to warn you."

Andrew laughs, like Steven hoped he would. "No! No...it's just a wild thing to pull off though, right? How are we even doing this?"

"I don't know!" Steven shrugs even though Andrew can't see him. "But you convinced me, so it looks like we're doing it."

"Weirdly, that does make me feel better," Andrew says. "See you on launch day."

\------

The day of the launch dawns bright and clear, not a cloud in the sky. Not that the weather ever seems to affect the alien shuttle, but it will make for some great shots.

Packing their little group into the rental van is a process. They all have about ten times the normal amount of luggage. As excited as they all are, no one is in a rush to leave the airport hotel — it's mundane and generic, and it's the last familiar place they'll see in weeks.

Rie brings a giant travel mug of hotel coffee with her in the van and nurses it for most of the trip, until they're close enough that they can catch flashes of sunlight off the rocket gantry in the distance. "There had better be coffee in space," she says. "This is terrible and I'll miss it."

Steven writes _space coffee_ in his ideas notebook. At this point he's almost more nervous about planning and filming an entire season on the fly than the whole being on an alien mothership part. Which is, objectively, the coolest and most outlandish thing ever, but it's not his _job_. He can't mess that part up.

"Hey," Andrew says, catching Steven's eye. "It's going to be great." He reaches for the dashboard camera. "Ready to roll?"

Steven grins. "Yeah. Let's do this."


	2. bonus graphic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The poster that Andrew sent Steven

[click for full size](http://oi65.tinypic.com/15n2lmu.jpg)

(A lavender and lime green ms paint poster showing the earth, the moon, and a large irregularly-shaped spaceship. The text reads: Inhabitants of Earth.....You have Generously Shared your cultures.......now, allow us to welcome you to ours! Visit the Mothership! Cultural exchange! SHARING. Now accepting applications!)


End file.
